I'm genuinely curious why only nest, alexa, google home[^1] devices get highlighted - aren't they all use the same tech as the Google App on android? Why are android phones not flagged as well?
I don't mind people using computers and their powers to ease their lives. I don't want to deny them that just because they are next to me or in my home. I just don't want them to use that power to collect and track and surveil everything at all times around them, wittingly or unwittinlgy.
Unfortunately, the trend is to stick a camera and microphone (and compute/network stack) on every consumer device sold to you, including TVs and refrigerators. Not sure what the solution is, since the vendors can make a plausible argument for the convenience provided by voice control and additional features enabled by object detection. Perhaps some combination of local (rather than cloud) inferencing, immediate deletion of data, and privacy laws that clearly assign ownership of data to the consumer and dramatically limit what telemetry data can be sent back?
A soldering iron?
I could maybe see it's usefulness for certain elderly or disabled people but I couldn't figure out why the majority of the population would ever want that.
Also, you can turn off OK google in Android, although they don't make it as easy as they should.
I don't use Android myself (I use https://ubports.com/ - it's great and you should try it), but several times I've had other people ask me to turn it off, and the best I can come up with is just dragging the Google search box off the home screen. But there's no feedback to suggest it's not still listening, only that shouting "OK GOOGLE" at the phone no longer does anything.
I'm using Lineage at the moment. I'd like to ditch Android entirely but I'm not sure ubports is where it needs to be yet. Unfortunately the open non-Android mobile OS's seem to die before they reach maturity. Obviously it's tough on them if they're competing with an existing app ecosystem, as they are.
I see variations of that argument very often. Its essence goes like this:
A: This is a proven threat.
B: But so could be this and that.
A: Right, could be.
B: But we can't get rid of them all, so let's just do nothing.
Here person B somehow convinced themselves that doing anything in that regard to be futile because they can't solve this class of problems once and for all.
There is a distinction between possible threats on one side and an existing threat based on evidence on the other side.
Any device with the capabilities of a smartphone can be nefarious, but doesn't have to be. Any Android device certainly is.
So I'd like to tell people to turn off their Android devices, but may they keep using their open hardware and software phone, because I don't see them as the threat, but the entity that controls their Android device.
Do you expect to altogether prevent people from bringing computing devices into your home? If you are not a state target, then that is just silly. Focus your malcontent on the real bad actors, not their victims.
In this case, as you already know despite wanting to twist its meaning, "State target" refers to someone whom the state is specifically, actively expending resources in order to target. Target being the key word. Being part of a giant nation-wide dragnet doesn't make you a target.
This is not true, voice-activated Siri is a setting as well and turned off on my iPhone.
There has never been any evidence that I've ever seen that these audio processors save and transmit their work pre-activation, only post-activation of the service.
Although I do remember in the 2014-2016 time frame when the CIA hack tools got released I believe there was a tool which could basically hot-mic certain iPhones through a zero day and use it to live transmit to a state actor without warning the user (minus the device getting hot from recording and network access).
I'm sure Android has similar zero days just as all software does.
Not all Android phones have Google Assistant.
This is blatantly false. Many high-end android phones and all recent iPhones do this. A large number of phones do not.
- Smart home devices are used at home, where you have a high expectation of privacy. In contrast phones go with you everywhere.
- Those devices are supposed to hear everything in the room clearly. A phone in your pocket or backpack? If they can make their mics good enough for that, I would like to have that tech.
And in many places, people take their phones out of their pocket. And women's pockets often don't have good pockets at all, so whenever they sit down the phone is also put down (or in use).